Reinhard Selten - Life and Career

Life and Career

Selten was born in Breslau (Wrocław) in Lower Silesia, now in Poland, to a Jewish father, Adolf Selten, and Protestant mother, Käthe Luther. For his work in game theory, Selten won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He is also well known for his work in bounded rationality, and can be considered as one of the founding fathers of experimental economics. He developed an example of a game called Selten's Horse because of its extensive form representation. He is noted for his publishing in non-refereed journals to avoid being forced to make unwanted changes to his work.

Selten is professor emeritus at the University of Bonn, Germany, and holds several honorary doctoral degrees. He has been an Esperantist since 1959., and met his wife through the Esperanto movement. He is a member and co-founder of the International Academy of Sciences San Marino.

For the European Parliament election, 2009, he was the top candidate for the German wing of Europe – Democracy – Esperanto.

Read more about this topic:  Reinhard Selten

Famous quotes containing the words life and, life and/or career:

    “But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “We have long forgotten the ritual by which the house of our life was erected. But when it is under assault and enemy bombs are already taking their toll, what enervated, perverse antiquities do they not lay bare in the foundations.”
    —Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)

    “Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
    —Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)